“This is an extremely difficult, yet necessary, step in order to realign the combined businesses with a vision for strengthening the new Textron Aviation segment,” Textron Aviation Senior Vice President Jim Walters wrote in the letter to staff. The Eagle reported that 575 of the employees being laid off work in Wichita.

The company declined to provide comment beyond the contents of the one-page letter.

Textron CEO Scott C. Donnelly presented the detailed purchase plan in December, and said then that some number of positions would be eliminated. The $1.4 billion deal was completed quickly, and the company has emphasized that customer service remains a priority, promising a transition that will be seamless, from the customer perspective.

Textron Aviation in March chose three Beechcraft executives and 11 from Cessna to comprise the new leadership team.

Mark Scheuer was tired of yelling at his wife across the noisy cockpit of their Grumman Yankee, and he thought there had to be a better way of communicating. PS Engineering Inc. was born out of that necessity and is now celebrating its third decade of forging new ground in cockpit communication technology.

A tale of flying adventure, severe injuries, international political maneuvering, and an emergency at sea comes to life in "Floatplane Odyssey," a book that commemorates the twenty-fifth anniversary of Tom Casey’s 1990 around-the-world flight in a Cessna 206 on floats.